


The Last Secret

by Sashataakheru



Series: The Girl Outside 'verse [5]
Category: The Move RPF
Genre: Adoption, Community: trope_bingo, Confessions, Gen, Letters, Secret Child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 13:35:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sashataakheru/pseuds/Sashataakheru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A letter, from Lady Sandra to her son Ace, explaining where he really came from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Secret

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt 'secret child' for trope bingo round 1. [My card.](http://3evilmuses.dreamwidth.org/55634.html)
> 
> This is mostly backstory for 'The Girl Outside AU, though I haven't pinned down exactly how/if/when Ace finds this letter and learns the truth about where he came from. Could be spoilery in that sense, if you don't want to know until it's in context?

Ace,  
My darling son,

I don't know if you will ever read this, nor am I sure whether you will not hate me for what I have done. I have done many things I am not proud of, which I know will come as a shock to you, my boy, but when you know what I have done, I hope you will understand why, and perhaps you will find it in your heart to forgive me.

It feels strange to be writing a confessional to you in the first place; you had your own secrets when you came to live with us, and perhaps if that had been all there had been to confess, perhaps I would not be writing to you now. You were trusting enough to share your secrets with me, but I have never told you what I am about to tell you now.

I write to you now, my son, to tell you about your birth. I know this will seem strange, that I should know anything about your birth, and perhaps it will take a while for you to understand why I kept this from you. You came to us as a stranger, and we accepted you as our son, as if you had always been with us. Over the years, I did sometimes wonder if that was the right thing to do, but it's too late to change that now. You became our son, for better or worse, and now I feel I ought to tell you what I probably should've told you a long time ago.

It may seem strange to even think it true, but I am your biological mother. I was the one who gave birth to you, and by some strange twist of fate, you have come back to me after I gave you away. I thought I would go to my grave with this secret held close to my chest, but then you turned up again at a time when I needed a child to love, and when I realised who you really were, I knew, one day, I ought to tell you who you really are. There is never a good time for this sort of confession, but I think I owe you this much, after everything you've been through, to tell you this now.

You were born a year after the war during a time when everything felt utterly chaotic. I had met your father in a London hospital, and we worked together, trying to heal the minds and bodies of the soldiers who had come back from the war. I liked him, I loved him, but our relationship was born more out of the war than anything else. I had never intended to marry him, not once he told me he was an Earl. But by the time he'd told me this, I was already pregnant, and I had no idea what to do.

I knew the child would never be accepted as a legitimate heir, even though I had no intention of marrying your father at the time. But the war was just over, and I went to live with my mother instead. She was more understanding about the child than I could have hoped, and she gave me support when no one else did.

It felt like a year of exile. I dared not show my face to your father while I was with child. He never knew, and after the war, we didn't see much of each other, as he went back to his manor, and I to my family. Perhaps if we had been engaged to be married, perhaps if our relationship had not, at the time, been more than a war time comfort, perhaps I would have told him. But I thought I would be shamed for admitting it to him. I did love him at the time, I was sure of it then, but I would not bear him a child out of wedlock, so I retreated to my mother's home, and tried to hide it from the world.

I feel so ashamed telling you this. As I carried you in my belly, I felt such resentment towards you. I did not have the courage to harm you, or abort you; those would have brought other dangers with them, other than shame that I was not willing to endure. No, I decided I would carry you to term, and then I would put you up for adoption. The sooner you were out of my life, the better. I would only return to your father once you were gone. At the time, I felt it was the best course of action. I didn't know what else to do.

It was a different time back then. Getting pregnant was a disaster if you weren't married, and it carried great shame with it, at least it did within the circles I mixed with. I literally spent nine months at home, never leaving the house, to make sure no one knew I was pregnant. The birth happened in such secrecy I doubt anyone really knew. I was lucky we could do that. I had feared I'd end up giving birth at home, and everyone would know, but my mother made sure I was taken to hospital, and able to give birth discretely. We would not be returning home with a child, and there would be no suspicions raised. I had immense privilege in that regard, and I am constantly thankful I was able to keep this secret for so long. Perhaps when you are reading this, whatever year that may be, the times will be different. Maybe you will not judge me so harshly for what I did.

I barely remember your birth. I don't know if that's because I have blocked most of those memories out, or if it was just because of the morphine. There were complications, I remember that much. It seemed to go on forever, and I was barely aware of what was going on. Then the midwife beamed as she told me you were a girl. I was heartbroken. I might have saved you if you had been a boy, but your father would never have accepted a girl. I have not really forgiven myself for even thinking this way, and knowing how you have turned out, I feel like the Universe was playing a magnificent prank on me.

I don't remember seeing your face at all in those moments. I don't remember holding you, or smiling down at you like a loving mother should. I don't remember holding you to my breast and feeding you. That perfect moment of childbirth was not one I experienced. I just wanted you gone. I sent you away, told them to give you to a mother who needed you more than I did. I never even asked who had taken you. I didn't want to know. If I didn't know, I could pretend it had all been a dream, and maybe I would never have to tell you, because I would never see you again.

I married your father after that, after I'd had enough time to recover. We loved each other too much, and once the war began to fade and life returned to normal, we were able to forge a stronger relationship. He had been writing to me ever since we had parted ways, and I could not help but respond, though I dared not tell him anything about the pregnancy and told him we could not see each other just yet. I did not want him knowing about that, and by the time I did allow him to see me again, the baby was a distant memory left in the hazy past. He was a magnificent man, my darling, and I could not have hoped for a more compassionate man. I did right by waiting to marry him, when I could hide my secrets away and be a proper wife to him. I did not wish to cause him any shame.

I bore him a son a few years after that, though it would be the last time I would ever give birth. His birth had complications, too, ones that left me barren. I felt my womb had been cursed because I gave you up. But your father was less upset about it than I had feared. The child lived, and he was a boy, an heir for the title that had been in his family for generations. I had done my duty as the wife of an Earl, and he did not hate me for my condition. One male child was enough, and we would be thankful for the one we had.

I still don't know what happened to my boy. I threw myself into my work, trying to keep myself occupied. I had the nanny to take care of him, so what mothering duties did I need to perform? I was not expected to do anything of much substance, and at the time, I was not willing to go against what was expected of me. Childrearing was what the nanny was for, and I wasn't in a position to refuse it. The privilege of your father's family and wealth allowed me to hand the boy over to other women to care for, and I did so gladly. I don't want you to think I didn't love him, though. I did my best to love the boy as best I could, but I wasn't always there, and he became too attached to his nanny in the end.

He was a sensitive child, just like you probably were. You've told me enough now to know what your childhood was like. You were unsettled like he was. What curse I have passed on to you both, I cannot say. I still loved him, though. He always managed a smile for me, even though he was often quiet and uncommunicative. He loved solitude, and walking out in the woods. I suppose I should've seen it coming, but I wasn't around, I wasn't being attentive enough, so when he disappeared, I had no idea why.

You must think it strange to think about him at all. I guess he is like a ghost to you, a photo on a mantelpiece, a body in a crypt, but not a living child. You have no memory of him at all, but he lived for me, and it was only when he went missing that I realised how much I loved him. But by then, it was too late. His bones will never tell his story, and I can only guess as to how he might have died, and where he was during those months when he was gone. We tried so hard to find him, but he was never to return to us alive.

I still don't know what brought you back into our lives at that time. Some cruel trick of fate, perhaps. I dared not believe you were the girl I gave birth to all those years ago, not for many years. I could not bring myself to consider it, even though I could see certain things in your face that reminded me of what I'd looked like when I was a young girl. I saw things in my son that reminded me of you. Your father was right, you did look a lot like my son when we first found you all those years ago. I was willing to accept you as my own son because I dared not think you were anything other than a stray who had come wandering in. You wanted a mother, and I was willing to be yours. You could be the son that had been cruelly taken from me, and you could do it because you looked so much like him. No one would notice, and the heir would still live.

You were so skinny when you first came back to us. Small, scared and neglected. Hearing how you were treated by the family that took you in after you were born upset me, and for a long time, I didn't know why that was. I had never known where you had gone once I gave you up. I never knew why you were given to that family, or who they even were. You never told me who they were, and I don't want to know. It is enough knowing what you have felt safe telling me, and it plagues me with guilt that I gave you up, only for you to end up with a family that hated you, just as I had hated you when you were growing inside me. But I don't think I would have been much of a mother to you at that time, anyway. I was not ready to love a child then, and perhaps we were both better for waiting to be together again, when I could give you the love you really needed when I was able to give it.

I imagine you will probably be thinking that, by this time, I have told your father all about this, but you'd be wrong. I have never told him about the first child I bore. I never told him about you and what I'd done, even once I worked out who you really were. But I'm getting old now, and perhaps it is for the best that your father has passed on at last. Perhaps I feel safe writing this now, knowing he is not here to find out what I have done. You have the title and the manor for yourself now, and with your own children, the inheritance is safe. There is nothing left for me to worry about, except this.

You have always been my son, whether you knew it or not. I still remember that day when you almost left us, when we'd found our son's remains in the woods, and you were so scared you would be hanged for it. You'd grown up so poor, and now you were living with more wealth than I daresay your adoptive family would have seen in a lifetime. I cannot blame you for being scared in that situation. I can't even fathom how you managed to live the way you did, concealing your real sex from us for so long.

I think I knew when you told me you were a boy, but had the wrong body. I think I knew in my heart that you were my son, you were the girl I gave up all those years ago. The similarities in your appearance were so strong they couldn't have been due to chance alone. But even then, I didn't want to acknowledge it, because that would mean admitting that I had given my husband an illegitimate heir who was now standing before us, alive and well, and if anyone should ever find out, the inheritance would be lost to you. Perhaps I was too worried about that than how you might feel about it. Perhaps we were both too willing to believe you could be our other child, and perhaps enough people bought into it that no one ever thought you could possibly be anyone else. No one doubted you, and perhaps that made it too easy. But that's easy to say now, looking back on it all.

I feel like I stole your life away. You never had a chance to be yourself. You were always Thomas, the heir, a role you needed to play for us as much as we needed you to be our son. I know I did try to let you be Ace, in those early years, but things got too out of hand, and perhaps if you had not been so firmly entrenched in being Thomas, things might have been different. Maybe I would have let you live as Ace, and let Thomas rest in peace. But you became Thomas, and gave up your life for us. I don't know if I have ever been so noble in offering any equivalent sacrifice. We needed an heir, and you stepped into the role. I guess you were too frightened to do otherwise when we found you, so convinced you were our lost son. For a boy coming from the family you came from, I can't blame you for wanting to make us happy, to be the son we loved so much.

I have never even asked you how you felt about that. To be elevated to such a position of privilege that I doubt you had the capacity to deal with, to be thrust into being someone you were not, I have never even asked you if it was what you wanted from us. I know you wanted to be loved, and I hope we at least managed that. But I am not sure this was ever the life you wanted for yourself, and I am sorry if we did not consider that enough back then. Perhaps if Thomas had not gone missing, and you had come back to us under different circumstances, things may have been different. Maybe then, I would have given you more reign to be yourself than to be someone else. It is too late to be wondering about regrets, though. There is nothing to be done about it now. I just hope you still do not hate me for what I have done, to have given you away to suffer so much neglect.

I cannot do anything now to make up for it. I may have passed on by the time you read this, if you read it at all. I cannot decide if I wish for you to read this only once I am dead, or if I should just hide it away, and hope you never read this at all. Perhaps I have needed this act of writing it all down to purge me of my feelings of guilt, regardless of whether I leave it for you, or burn it in the fire. Maybe it's better you don't know. I fear this will just cause you too much grief, and you may blame me for abandoning you to a family that didn't care for you. I would not blame you if you did. I had a chance to save you from that if I had kept you, though I am not sure what kind of life that would have offered you as an illegitimate child. I am not sure your father would have married me then, and maybe we would never have been in such a position. You may have been more able to be yourself, then. But none of that matters now. I have told you my last secret, and now I can find peace with myself at last. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me, my son.

Your loving mother,  
Sandra


End file.
